


Freak On A Leash

by dvs



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-30
Updated: 2010-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:38:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dvs/pseuds/dvs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy stands by Harry's side while he has other things on his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freak On A Leash

**Author's Note:**

> Leads up to and past **Last of the Timelords**. The title is taken from the **Korn** song _Freak on a Leash_.

She's seen him before, of course, but how she can't remember, it's so strange. She's seen him at the house, her father's house, a shadow in his black suit through half-open doors, quietly listening as her father talks. She's never seen him arrive or leave, he just seems to vanish into thin air.

She knows of him before she finally does meet him. Every other word her father mentions is 'Harold Saxon'. She hasn't seen her father so animated, so taken before. He's under the spell of this Harold Saxon.

When they do meet, he just strides into her life and says, “Harold Saxon, at your service,” the corner of his mouth quirking like he's told some big big joke. “You must be the lovely Lucy.”

Lucy is suspicious of him for all of five seconds before her hand is in his and he's turning it to kiss the back, his eyes looking up at her. She frowns at him and then finds herself laughing a little because there's something wickedly forward in his eyes and his smile, something barely contained by his very smart and neat suit. She fancies she'd like to just keep staring at him for a while.

She does seem to forget her surroundings a little. There's some music far behind her or perhaps in front or somewhere, but she's not sure if anyone else is dancing. In fact, she doesn't realise that Harold Saxon never let her hand go and has placed it on his shoulder, pulling her into a dance, her drink magically gone from her hand. The world has peculiarly narrowed down to this one man.

She should ask him who he is, but a part of her brain says that this is Harold Saxon. What else is there to know? He's here, he's solid under her hands and he seems to have chosen her for something while everyone around them can only watch.

## 

*

When she's not near him, not talking to him, not looking into his eyes, she watches him, his reassuring hand on her father's shoulder, full of promises and hope. It's hard not to believe him when he talks. But sometimes... she looks too long and there's something terrifying in his eyes, in his promising smiles. Something terrible, beautiful, but so terrible.

But the moment is broken because he sees her watching and his mouth breaks into _that_ smile and he's striding towards her with, “Ah, the lovely Lucy.” and it's the only time her name doesn't sound so childish and dull.

“Wonderful chap that Harry,” her father says later on. “Just wonderful and bloody smart too”

Lucy smiles and nods, feeling oddly proud. “He is rather smart, isn't he?”

“Genius, if you ask me,” her father says and it's funny how everyone seems to agree. Really, _everyone_.

## 

*

When her father dies, she's holding his hand, watching the life ebbing out of him and Harry's standing in the doorway looking as impeccable as ever, arms folded across his chest and the most unreadable expression on his face, like death is nothing to get worked up about. There is a coldness to Harry that Lucy is getting to know well. For every over amorous gesture, Harry can be so cold and distant and it burns a little.

The machine tells her with a long whine that her father is gone and the hand in hers is no more than a dead thing, something that once was. She drops the hand and pulls back from the bed, staring at the still warm corpse, feeling an odd kind of horror that this man who was human once is... nothing.

Harry is silent somewhere behind her and she wants to turn around and look at him and become lost again, let reality blur into something pleasant and warm, the way his eyes make her believe everything is fine, just fine, all fine.

She's snapped out of her thoughts by a sound. She's heard it before but it's never really registered until now. It's a tapping. Tappity tap. Tappity tap. Tappity tap. A rhythm that has no end. She turns to see Harry leaning next to the door and his fingers idly tapping out that sound on the wall as he stares at her dead father.

He looks stubborn and sullen and maybe she feels warmed that at least there are two people here offended by her father's passing away. Everyone else is off living their little lives, uncaring and indifferent. It's just Harry here. Just him. It makes her just slightly angry.

“Harry?” she says, not sure what she means to ask him.

The tapping stops and he turns to look at her long and hard and then smiles as if suddenly all is well with the world when really it can't be, it just can't. Can it? How can she be so unsure so quickly? It doesn't matter, not when he's holding out his arms and tilting his head in that way, so soft and endearing it has to be an illusion.

“Come on,” he says, nodding. “Come.”

She rises from her chair and just drifts to him, right into the embrace of his arms and closes her eyes. His arms come around her tight and warm and he rocks her side to side a little with, “Just you and me now and the rest of the world.”

She pulls back and frowns at him. “Really?”

A slow smile spreads on his face. “Well, that depends.”

“On what, Harry?” she asks, her arms still around him, so unwilling to let go she doubts herself a little.

“On whether you'd like to be my... _wife_, or not,” he asks smoothly.

Or not doesn't seem like an option. Not when Harry is here in the hospital room where her father just died. Not when he's the only one here. There's a world out there with people who knew her father, family, friends and the man standing by her is Harold Saxon. Somewhere in the back of her mind is a memory of not being able to find out anything about this man, but it's long buried and she doesn't care for it much.

Lucy closes her eyes and retreats back into the embrace, feeling him kiss her temple firmly and hold her tight. It's just her and Harry against the world now.

## 

*

It's mid-morning and Lucy is stirring sugar into her cup when light glints off the wedding ring and stops her dead. The spoon falls from her hand and she stares at the ring on her finger. There's a flurry of memories in her head, blurred and distorted by feelings that don't correspond and then suddenly, as soon as she concentrates on the blurs, the memories are crystal clear. Flowers and smiles, a small affair, champagne and dancing. That hypnotic smile.

Lucy turns around and sees Harry standing by the fridge, hands in pockets as he watches her. She tilts her head and watches him back, wondering how long he's been standing there, like he's frozen in time. Then, without a word, he's gone.

Lucy stirs some sugar into her coffee and it ends up being too sweet in the end.

## 

*

Sometimes, he just sits there and stares off into space. It's like someone has an off switch and they flip it and he just... stops. She finds him sitting in front of his laptop, looking at some schematics, but his mind is miles away. His eyes are fixed ahead of him and his hand is fisted against the table like he might just spring into action and lash out against something.

His manic enthusiasm isn't as frightening as this stillness.

She approaches the desk with care, so not to startle him. She knows there is every chance of him being sweet as there is of him pushing her away and looking at her with unhidden contempt. She knows he hates being seen like this, trapped somewhere far away.

Trapped here maybe.

She reaches out ever so tentatively, her hand touching his fist as light as a feather. He doesn't even flinch, making no move to show that he knows she's here, by his side. Only, a moment later, his fist turns and his hand opens and her hand is slipping into the cradle of his and then his fingers are closing around her fingers as the corner of his mouth lifts into a smile.

He looks up at her and says, “I want to show you something.”

## 

*

It's just a box, a blue one. One of those public police boxes from the fifties. Lucy frowns at it and wonders if she should say it's lovely, though it's kind of... well, just blue and boxy really.

Harry smiles and nods, “Dull, isn't it? But wait, there's more.”

Harry opens the door and steps inside. Lucy is still staring. The more time she spends with Harry, the more she realises that behind those smiles, those smart smart eyes there's something else. That thing that might have terrified her months ago, but now intrigues her.

His head pops out of the box, followed by his hand and he says, “Well come on then, time's a wasting.”

Lucy laughs nervously and takes his hand, allowing herself to be pulled into the box. He pulls her all the way in and then lets go, spreading out his hands to declare the marvel she's witnessing.

Lucy stares, open-mouthed. She turns, and turns and turns again, clapping her hands together and bringing them to her mouth. A magic wardrobe of all things.

And there he is, Harry, waiting for her to say something. He watches television and laughs in all the wrong places. He stops in the middle of sentences and walks, shocked by strange things. He could be mad, or he could be alien. Most likely, he's both, but that strange series of beats in his chest that she's heard in the middle of the night, her ear pressed against it hard, that's not her madness after all. A shame perhaps. She quite liked being mad for a bit.

“Well?” Harry asks, so casual it's funny.

“How?” she asks.

Harry gives her a look and maybe it's the first time he's looked impressed by anything she's done. “It's a ship. A TARDIS. Time and relative dimensions in space.”

Time. Dimensions. Space. Somehow, that's how this thing is bigger on the inside. “It flies?”

“Like you wouldn't believe,” Harry says with a curl to his top lip. “Anywhere in time and-”

“Anywhere in space,” Lucy says softly. She walks up the ramp, close to Harry who is watching her with infinite amusement, looking so grand and so brilliant in the green light of the machinery behind him. “Who are you?”

Harry smiles and says, “I... am the Master, and you are my _faithful_ companion. Isn't that right?”

Lucy closes her eyes. She doesn't want to look at him, be drawn into his soft eyes and smile. She wants to look at him through closed eyes, through the mirror in her mind and she wants to be able to see there is no softness. There is madness in his eyes and a malice in his smiles. She wants to be able to see it all when she says, “Yes.”

She doesn't open her eyes even when she hears his footsteps on the ramp, him nearing her, his hands taking hers, their fingers intertwining and then his mouth crushing her mouth as his body becomes flush with hers and it's like dancing in the middle of nowhere to that insufferable beat he taps out day and night.

He pulls away and she opens her eyes to see him looking like he's drunk. He asks, “How would you like to see the end of the universe, Mrs. _Saxon_?”

Lucy nods. She can't imagine him showing her anything else.

## 

*

His laugh echoes in her head for days after. The way he saw the hellfire in the skies of a world far away and clapped his hands. The way he said, “Oh and you thought you'd _saved_ them!”

She does wonder who _you_ might be, but doesn't ask. It doesn't matter. Actually, nothing really matters, does it? Infinity isn't as infinite as she'd imagined and the universe is a much smaller place for it. Not that it should matter. She'll burn out much sooner than the universe does, what does it matter at all?

Only it does. For some reason it does. For some reason it matters that humans will fight to survive until the very end only to end up as... those things. Those terrible terrible things.

“Don't worry, my darling,” Harry had said, looking into the heart of Utopia, the fires flickering madly in his eyes. “We're going to save them.”

Lucy had just stared, her eyes unable to shut out the scene, her ears filled with Harry's laughter. She had laughed too. There weren't enough tears for this sort of thing.

## 

*

He seems entranced by his own reflection sometimes, like he doesn't know the man in the mirror. She watches him carefully button his shirt, put on his cuff links, tie his tie, straighten it, put on his jacket, smooth it down and then just stop. He stares at himself and then smiles that smile he uses on everyone. Sweet, bright and promising.

Lucy sees herself in the mirror, just behind his shoulder, her hair mussed, her lipstick slightly smudged and her robe falling off one shoulder. She sees herself and doesn't know that woman, or maybe she's still expecting to see the little girl Lucy, ever so sweet. She smiles and Harry catches it in the mirror, looking utterly overjoyed for some reason. He almost spins around and says, “Prime Minister Harold Saxon. Has a nice ring, doesn't it? What do you think? Time we moved into a nice new place, isn it?”

Lucy steps up to Harry and presses her hands flat against his chest and she feels the beat the sound of drums, under each hand as she looks at him and marvels.

“I think,” she says quietly, stroking a hand over his jacket, “Prime Master Harold Saxon sounds wonderful.”

Harry's mouth grows into the biggest smile and he turns away from her to look back in the mirror, pleased and proud, his eyes lined with dark arrogance, his mouth pulling a satisfied pout. “Not yet,” he says. “Not before he comes back.”

But he doesn't say who _he_ is. He never says. It's like being jealous of the invisible man.

## 

*

The Master, she thinks. Such a grand title. To look at him, you wouldn't think 'master'. To look at him, you might not be able to think at all. All you'd see would be the smile and you'd never remember anything else.

She can barely remember him saying, “I am the Master.” It's more like an echo in an empty cave.

He doesn't tell her what that means, to be the Master, but it obviously it has to do with the TARDIS and it has to do with that mixed up beating sound in his chest. Ir's not right. Not right at all.

His nightmares reveal nothing either. When he sleeps in the same bed on rare occasion, she's heard him murmur things, looking distressed and belligerent. Then he'll wake as if he wasn't sleeping, his mouth twisting in anger and he'll throw back the covers and storm out and lock himself away in the TARDIS. She doesn't worry he might just disappear one day. No, he has plans. He doesn't seem the type to abandon them.

One night she follows him because he looks more haunted than angry, almost confused. She quickly throws on her nightgown and goes down into the cellar where the TARDIS is, its door slightly ajar. She walks in, still not used to the strangeness of seeing the external size and then viewing the interior, finding it to be so much bigger.

She sees Harry. His back is turned to her, rigid and tense under his white shirt. He takes a deep breath and goes about pressing buttons and pulling leavers, tapping in keys, but nothing seems to his satisfaction and he brings his hand down hard on the large console with a grunt of frustration.

As if the TARDIS's non-compliance isn't enough, he seems distracted and distressed. His hands seem unsure of where they go on the console before finally they lift up and go to his ears, covering them as he cries out in frustration.

She watches him drop to the ground, hands covering his ears, head pressed against the underside of the console as if he's trying to burrow into it, let the hum of the TARDIS drown out whatever it is he's hearing. He's breathing hard and angry under there, his body looking taut, coiled tight like a spring.

Lucy goes to him, seeing no master. Just Harry with all his strange little madnesses along with the grand ones. She crouches down and puts a hand on his shoulder, her fingers digging into the strong bone and flesh. His hands slowly come away from his ears and he turns to look at her with bloodshot angry eyes, his mouth curled, anything but sugar and spice. She tilts her head at him questioningly.

“Drums,” he grates out . “Can't you hear them?”

Drums, she thinks. That sound she lives with every day, that sound he taps without even realising it. Sometimes she sees him tapping it out on the table and watching his own fingers and now she wonders how loud it might be in his head, for him to hide like this.

She slowly reaches out towards the floor and taps her fingers there on the metal grate, the sound vibrating across the ground, metallic and loud. She doesn't take her eyes away from him, watching his face as something opens up there, his eyes widening a little, his mouth hardening as he watches her fingers tapping out the sound, over and over and over and over...

His hand shoots out, as quick as a snakebite, and grabs her fingers, crushing them in his hold as if somehow that'll stop the sound in his head. It's not a painful hold, not yet. She watches him, breathless and blinking as he looks straight into the heart of her. He moves forward and her arm automatically closes around his neck when he kisses her, his hand under her robe and moving firm across her skin.

“I hear it,” he whispers into her ear, pulling her up from the ground, pulling her close. “All the time. Every second of every minute.”

She nods, eyes falling shut as his mouth kisses her throat, her body swaying a little. “I know,” she whispers back. “I know.”

He nips at her ear and she feels his teeth, his smile when he says, “And doesn't it just drive you _insane_?”

She pulls back to look at him and then smiles, open and wide unlike how she's felt in a long while. He sees her smile and grins before holding her tight enough to squeeze the life out of her, before lifting her off her feet and carrying her out of the TARDIS, away from its eerie hum.

## 

*

Lucy thinks she can survive the end of the world since she's already seen the end of the universe. Whether humanity ends now or later, it doesn't matter since there's an end regardless. Harry will make it something horribly beautiful, she knows. Just like his creation in the TARDIS. All that matters is that she'll be by his side, his faithful companion. Just the two of them.

## 

*

“The Doctor. He's coming.”

“Is he your friend?”

A laugh. “Oh no. Much more. We are what you might call... frenemies,” He smiles, so utterly amused.

Lucy doesn't know what he means, but it makes her hate Harry a little. There's an odd giddy joy around his eyes when he talks about this doctor and it shouldn't be there. It's never been there for anything else. Not for her, not for destruction, not for this time or the end of the universe.

“I don't understand.”

He sneers at her, actually sneers. “How could you possibly understand? He will be the biggest spectator of this _wonderful_ event. Oh yes. I have a front seat reserved just for him.”

Lucy looks away, not sure where she fits in right now, but Harry's got her hand. “Come on, darling. Time to greet the President.”

Lucy smiles, his eyes only on her now, the Doctor forgotten. So she asks, “Is he like you? This doctor?” Does he have two broken and cold hearts too?

Something in Harry's eyes shifts, something like distrust maybe. He strokes a gloved finger down her cheek. “He is _nothing_ like me.” His faces shutters for a moment, blank and unreadable. “And everything like me, though he'd rather die than admit to it. Of course, I'm fine with that.”

A second later it's all smiles again and a cheery, “Well, best be off then. Don't want to keep the President waiting, I hear he gets rather testy in regards to timetables and such. Maybe we should take him a box of Quality Streets or something. No, forget it, I don't think I'll bother.”

Lucy smiles, content with Harry's insanity, so much better than his rage or his stillness. She takes his offered arm, looping her arm through it, relishing the warmth of his gloved hand on hers. It could be real for a moment, all these things he is with her. It could be more than a tapped out illusion. There could be a part of him that wants her there and doesn't just keep her because she's his and because they form a whole illusion of their own. She could love him easily, but something inside her says he really doesn't want to be loved while something else asks, why would a man want to be hated?

## 

*

  
The Doctor is not what she expects. Harry's face spells out the emotions he wants people to see. This Doctor, his emotions flicker on his face, fear, despair and frustration. He has tears in his eyes for Earth as fire rains from the skies. Harry only seems to care that the Doctor see this all, that he be broken. It's not enough to take away his youth. Not enough to cage him. Harry wants to break him.

It makes her wonder what's so special about this Doctor.

“Why do you hate him so much?” she asks, remembering the look no Harry's face as he aged the Doctor a second time, something between fear and satisfaction.

Harry turns to her with a sneer, his impatience worn much more apparently than ever before, She thought having the Doctor would keep Harry eternally elated, but instead, he seems more distracted and discontent. He closes his eyes, looking like someone trying to block out a headache.

“Hate him?” Harry asks, looking amused. “What makes you think I hate him?”

Lucy frowns and before she can explain what makes her think she hates him, Harry comes to her and grabs her face in his hands, fingers digging into her skin. “Let me guess. Feeling sorry for the Doctor, are we? Him and his humans. Just can't help falling in love with him. What is it? The big sad doey eyes or the 'oh humans are so wonderful' spiel? Is that it? God. It's just a popularity contest with you people, isn't it?”

Lucy draws a sharp breath. “Harry, you're hurting me.”

He gives her a measured look, from one eye to the other, down to her mouth and then pushes her away, her hand going up to her cheek where she can still feel the press of fingers.

He points at her and says, “_You_ are hurting _me_.” He looks completely mad, his eyes glittering with something bad, something wrong.

Lucy steps back further, unsteady on her feet, unable to look him in his insane eyes. Not now, not today. He comes to her instead, falling to his knees and wrapping his arms around her waist, pressing his face to her stomach to she can feel his breath through the flimsy dress. She looks down at him, unable to recoil or run.

Somehow her fingers are in his hair though, stroking. Somehow, she sighs and closes her eyes when his hand touches her ankle and begins the slow slide up under her dress. Somehow and stupidly, she forgives him as he rises, pulling the dress up as he stands, kissing her bruised cheek and pressing his body against hers, guiding it until there's a table behind her and nowhere to go.

His mouth is feverish on hers, his fingers on her hips, the dress bunched up above them. She opens her eyes to see his are closed as he finds an escape in her, so much like humans would do. Two fingers of each hand slip past the elastic of her knickers before pushing them down and letting them fall. She steps out of them and he pushes her back onto the table. He likes to kiss her, take refuge in her lips. He likes to let her unbuckle his belt and unzip his trousers. He likes it when Lucy, prim and proper, wraps her legs around him and takes him in with a wanton sigh, guiding him in with her hands so sure and firm.

Sometimes, his hands don't even wander beyond her hips, thumbs stroking the skin under them, his mouth doesn't leave her lips. He thrusts into her, measured and slow, until she can feel heat burning through his clothes, a sheen of sweat on his face, the cloth of his trousers beginning to become unbearable on the inside of her thighs. She arches back with a moan, wanting more and more, but he's mad. He wants to keep going as long as he can, thrusting and thrusting, his chest crushing her breasts, his fingers digging into her hips and his mouth open and breathing in all her gasps until he stills and comes without a sound, after she's already come and made insatiable.

He looks up from her mouth, deep into the soul of her and she can't tell what he's thinking when she places a hand on his cheek. She can't tell if he hates her or himself. Or everyone. His fingers are gone and her thighs are in his hands, gently stroked before he guides her legs down and pulls out of her, making her bite her lip at the sudden loss of him. He zips himself up and adjusts his tie, which still isn't straight, before he drops to the floor, taking an ankle, slipping something over it, taking the other ankle and slipping a foot through, sliding her knickers back up slowly before smoothing her dress down.

He takes her hand and says softly, “Come on, let's go and see that doctor you like so much.”

## 

*

Her father once told her that in the tide of a turning war, you chose the winning side because they might remember you once it was all over and done with. With any luck, they would leave you be afterwards. When the Doctor rises, a spectacle more amazing them the Toclafane destroying the people of Earth, Lucy can't decide why she calls his name. A time to switch to the winning side?

Or perhaps it's because this is the first time she's really seen Harry. Fear. So much fear. Cowering from the Doctor's forgiveness. Ranting like a child at the unfairness of it all. Where is Harold Saxon, she thinks. When he disappears and returns to the Valiant, the world isn't burning. His weapon hasn't been used. It makes no sense that he loses so swiftly in the end. How does the Doctor do all this. How does he bring down a giant?

“Remember,” Harry told her once. “The ring. Can you do it?”

“Yes,” she had said because she would have done anything. She could believe it too, her husband with two hearts and an alien ship. She could believe in his resurrection. When she saw the Doctor rise again, she knew Harry could too. It excited her, the thought that death could be conquered. He could come back.

There was no reason for it though. Why would Harry die in all this? The Doctor, of course.

Lucy watches him as he talks about not wandering anymore now that he has someone to care for and Lucy remembers seeing the fiery skies of Utopia, remembers the rain of death the Toclafane brought. She remembers being at Harry's side the whole time, her hand in his in every endeavor. More than that, she remembers the madness in his eyes when the sound of drums was unbearable, she remembers standing before him, biting down her fear just so he would know he wasn't alone and the Doctor asserts his right over her husband like she's invisible.

Resurrection or not, Lucy fancies that if she ever belonged to Harry, then Harry most certainly belongs to her, whether it be solid and in her arms or ashes in an urn. One bullet is all it takes and she was always a crack shot.

After that, the world narrows to Harry. No. To the Master and the Doctor. The Doctor steals even her mourning, holding Harry in a way she would have been too afraid to. Harry even looks different in the Doctor's arms. Still, to the end he goes only wanting one thing. To break the Doctor's hearts and there isn't a person in the room that doesn't hear them shatter. Loud enough to mask the sound her own heart makes, an insignificant whine in comparison.

## 

*

The ring is still warm when she finds it, inscribed with patterns that make no sense to her. This is the funeral pyre the Doctor lit, she thinks. She would ask Harry now, how did you not hate him more? I do.

Don't rush into things, Harry had said. Wait. If it all goes wrong, they'll watch you, wait for you to do something. Take your time. Be careful.

He was right. She's spotted people. The one called Jack Harkness once, with a woman she doesn't recognize. Lucy's sure she's seen the Doctor blend into the crowd on one occasion. But she has a key on a chain. She has three of them, wearing them and hiding from the world when she needs to.

She moves out of the old house, the one her father left her, Returns to the country. Plants messages with her friends about her broken heart and the man whose name she never wants to hear again. The papers are more interested in two countries suddenly without leadership than the widow of Harold Saxon. Months later, she truly just might be alone.

Alone enough to go to the church hall, abandoned years ago. Boarded up and condemned. Alone enough to creep away at night and find her way in, right into the cellar, boarded to look as though it doesn't even exist, shielded by perception filters to keep others away. Alone enough to pull away the boards, find that door, step inside and find a lab that could be inside the TARDIS itself, like another magic wardrobe.

The lab recognizes her presence and the lights come on, surrounding her in green and bronze, making her question what queer manner of hate Harry had for the Doctor. She goes to the console, reminiscent of the one in the TARDIS and initiates the sequence. A panel in the wall rotates to reveal a glass chamber at the same time as a slot reveals itself on the console. Lucy takes the ring out of her pocket and looks at it, smiling because she always had more faith in him than he had in her.

She places the ring in the slot and the console consumes it before the whole room begins to shudder and vibrate. Lucy feels a little breathless as she steps back from the console and presses herself against the wall, unable to keep from smiling as her eyes go wide and watch the chamber.

She remembers the Doctor rising, like something magical, everyone calling his name as she watches the chamber fill up line by line of light. The room glows fiercely, the green turning to red and the console making grating noises. The village will be without power tonight, but hopefully by the time this is done, no one will even know.

The chamber is almost filled with white buzzing energy and Lucy steps forward and smiles in awe. She says, “Master,” and the light explodes with color, pinpricks of purple lit eyes, sun bright screaming mouth. The room shakes, maybe even the world and the door to the chamber shatters, unable to contain the power inside.

A body, naked, falls to its knees and Lucy goes to him, watching his hands pressed to the ground by her feet, as if in prayer. He doesn't move, neither does she. She waits in silence as the machinery powers down around them, the room glowing a gentle green again. His head remains bowed, his hands splayed over shattered glass, the rest of his body pale and looking cold to the touch. So still and silent. Maybe he's not really back at all.

Only then, there it is. The sound of his fingers tapping on the ground, on the glass. Slow and deliberate. Harry slowly looks up at her, eyes drunkenly blinking and mouth spreading into a smile before he starts to laugh quietly, the sound echoing throughout the cellar, malevolent and victorious. Lucy crouches down and looks straight into his mad eyes because she knows she can't be sucked into something that exists inside her too. She holds out her fisted hand, opening it and revealing Harry's wedding ring.

Harry looks at it, all teeth and laughing eyes and then he pulls her close and mashes his mouth against hers in a kiss with a hiss of, “My faithful companion.”

She smiles back, open and hungry for him, remembering the Doctor rocking Harry in his arms, stealing him away, his conceited grief bigger than hers. Remembers Harry dying in the cradle of the Doctor's arms instead of hers.

Remembers it well enough to stand beside Harry one day when they bring the Doctor to his knees again.

**\- the end -**


End file.
